Its so spring its scary

It’s a beautiful St. Patrick’s Day in Michigan; we may actually get to 80 degrees and we have already broken the record of 72 at 76 degrees at 2 pm.  All week the weather has been very warm. We had some serious storms a few nights ago, with a tornado touch down or two just south and west of us.   But for the most part it has just been beautiful.  We opened the big pasture up to the horses and they have been trying to find those itsy green blades which are sprouting up.  The chickens are out scratching and they must be finding something because their feed consumption has gone way down.

 The frogs are singing like crazy, robins, red wing blackbirds and turkey vultures are back.  Mosquitoes and bees are out.  The crocus are in full bloom and some things are leafing out.  The buddleia, the honeysuckle, the roses by the back door, all are getting leaves, it’s just amazing.   In 2009 and 2010 we had an early spring but not this early.  Our windows are open and I have the ceiling fan on here in my office.  I worked outside cleaning a flower bed this morning and got so warm I quit.

 The warm weather is forecast to go all through the next week, with storms here and there.  It is nice but also scary because the fruit trees will bud and then probably we will lose the crop to a frost or freeze.  That’s what the fruit experts are predicting.  Maple syrup season has been a bust.   There may be considerable damage to perennials and trees that leaf out early too.  But there is nothing we can do about it.

We had another batch of sizzle chicks hatch yesterday.  I think just 3 lived though it looked like a couple more hatched.  There was a huge cache of eggs under the hen and I think the other hen was continuing to lay there so who knows what will happen.  I will probably wait until tomorrow and then clean the whole nest out.  The bigger chicks are still in there and don’t seem to bother the little ones except by stepping on them, which the tiny ones are fast learning to avoid.

 The guineas, which we call the terrorists, have taken to roaming the yard.  They are so noisy that I am seriously thinking about getting rid of them.  They are mean to the other birds too, they even chase the turkeys.  Steve said I should clip their wings like I did the turkeys and ducks so they can’t get in the yard.  But I decided t wait until I get ready to put the garden in, maybe in their wandering a few will just disappear.  And when they are out of the chicken pasture the other birds have some relief from them.

 

My stupid dogs which could be outside in the nice weather seem to want to stay inside.  Even when we were both outside this morning, working where they could have seen us from the yard they stayed inside.  Maybe its too warm for them, there isn’t much shade in the yard right now.  And unlike us, they don’t feel like they have to get out and enjoy it because it might not last.

 Hopefully I will get to my woods this weekend and look for surfaced bottles and other junk.  There is an old farm dump out there and I like to look through it in the spring when there is no undergrowth or bugs.  I have found some interesting bottles and things.   I used to look for old things as a kid around some old farm buildings I could walk to.  I wish I still had some of the stuff I found there.  There’s money in that old junk.

Yes the weather is nice but it's a bit scary.  It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop or acepting a trade off- we get warm weather but a bunch of tornadoes.  Or we get warm weather now and winter in April.  But there's nothing we can do.